Volume 12: Yaguna Kotor Chapter 584: "A New Species"
Although the 8.65mm HE bullet used by the MG-010S "Reaper" general-purpose machine gun is smaller in caliber than the 10mm full-power bullet of the assault rifle, and its penetration and stopping power are slightly weaker, the bullets used in rifles are generally filled with lead cores or steel cores, while AP bullets use tungsten cores... and this kind of HE bullet has a micro detonator and high explosive in the warhead.
(Tips to prevent arguments: The penetration and stopping power of a bullet are unrelated. There is no such thing as a bullet with strong penetration having weak stopping power. The two properties do not conflict. In addition, AP and HE are the abbreviations for armor-piercing and high-explosive bullets, respectively.)
When a solid bullet hits an energy shield, it will only be melted into liquid metal by the energy shield, and then pushed outward by the rapidly expanding air under high temperature. But it is different for high-explosive bombs. Each one explodes solidly on the shield, and the light curtain soon dims to the point where it is almost invisible.
There are currently only two effective ways to deal with energy shields: one is to use a physical weapon that is large enough to be burned away by the shield in a short period of time to penetrate the shield and directly attack the target behind the shield. Another method is to use energy shields or explosions to "reduce" the strength of the shield until the entire shield is exhausted.
A volley of high-explosive bombs directly blew away the shields of these wolf-like creatures, followed by their fur, flesh and bones.
When the last wolf-like creature fell, the barrels of the two machine guns had turned bright red.
"It seems that the task of capturing the person alive can only be given to Valentina." Ke Lan glanced at the broken corpses on the ground and shrugged helplessly at Ivan.
On the other hand, on another battlefield, the situation was almost one-sided. Augustus did not even use those thermal weapons with terrifying firepower. He only relied on the double blades on his arm armor to kill most of the general "wolf-like creatures".
"Don't kill them all. Try to catch a few alive." Ke Lan said to Valentina on the communication channel.
"Okay." After saying this, Augustus put away his double blades, clenched his fists and started fighting with these wolf-like creatures. The claws of these beasts were very sharp, but compared with the Nino alloy armor, they were still several levels behind. Their only achievement was probably to scratch Augustus' beautiful silver paint...
But every piece of paint loss and scratch was earned by sacrificing a part of their limbs or even their own lives. If these wolf-like creatures had not adopted a "fight injury with injury" strategy, they would not even be able to touch Augustus.
I saw a wolf-like creature suddenly leap up from the ground and try to pounce on Augustus' back, but Augustus turned around, grabbed , and threw it to the ground.
Although they were dozens of meters away, Ke Lan seemed to hear the crisp sound of countless bones being broken in the wolf-like creature's body.
The flexibility of this mecha formed a very obvious contrast with its huge body. With the anti-gravity device and high-pressure jet air cushion installed on its feet, it was like a ballet dancer gliding on the ice, constantly moving through the gaps on the battlefield, and every time it attacked, it could instantly injure a wolf-like creature.
In less than five minutes, none of the wolf-like creatures surrounding Augustus were still standing.
"The target number is thirty-one in total. Nineteen were killed, four were seriously injured and dying, and eight lost the ability to move." Valentina reported on the communication channel.
"well done."
"Also, I discovered something else," Valentina added.
"What?"
"Their teeth... although they can't penetrate the body's armor, they can tear open the energy shield." Valentina narrated a shocking news in a very calm tone - if it was a few hours ago, this news could indeed be considered extremely shocking, but now, after everyone discovered that these wolf-like creatures can use their flesh to release energy shields, the fact that their teeth can break the shield can only be said to be nothing new.
After all, if they don't have the means to break the energy shield, how can they kill their own kind?
"The teleportation landing point has been cleared. Thirty-three, you and the Gray Bird Hunting Group will each select four people to stay and guard this area. Valentina and Augustus will also stay. The others will take the captured wolf-like creatures and corpses back to the supply base." Ke Lan ordered.
This is the correct way to explore ruins: proceed steadily and cautiously. Only in this way can the risks and casualties during the exploration be kept to a minimum.
After Ke Lan and the others returned to the supply base at the other end of the transmission channel with their "trophies", the entire base immediately became busy -
First of all, the corpses of these wolf-like creatures must be sealed immediately to prevent them from rotting, and the injured and captured individuals must be treated immediately... Ivan is in charge of all these matters, so much so that Layton couldn't help but complain, "The old Russian has been a doctor for half his life, and now he is doing the work of a veterinarian."
The research on wolf-like creatures must be put into progress immediately, but there are only the most basic dissection equipment in the supply base. If experiments are carried out here, it would be a waste of resources. Even Ivan, who is already a little impatient, can only pick up a few pieces of badly damaged wreckage to satisfy his craving. As for the captured living samples, they still have to be sent back to the Ark intact.
On the other hand, Ke Lan asked Ye Yan to pick a group of people from the logistics staff, divide them into two groups, the "engineering group" and the "survey group", and go to Block No. 1 to build an outpost and conduct further geological environment surveys.
In addition, he also placed a new order with the Ye Group: the exploration team urgently needed a lightweight drone that was not affected by magnetic fields and could reach a flight altitude of at least 10,000 meters. Although Ke Lan had already determined that Block 1 should be a "cabin" inside the "Aguna Kotor", the cabin roof, which should have been a physical structure, turned out to be a dome that seemed to have almost no height limit, and there was also a "sun" in the sky that could emit light and heat. This was rather puzzling.
In order to find out whether this sky and the "sun" in the sky are real or simulated by some device, it is necessary to use aircraft to conduct vertical exploration - if necessary, Ke Lan even plans to use a manned aircraft to complete this task.
Not only the air, but also the ground exploration must be followed up. If Block 1 is the cabin inside the "Aguna Kotor", then this cabin must have boundaries. Just like the blocks on the Ark, even if the area of a certain block is so large that it takes several hours to drive through it, as long as you keep going in one direction, you will definitely be blocked by a wall in the end - whether this wall is the wall of a certain block, or the dividing wall between blocks... or the safety wall between the residential area and the external structure of the Ark, as long as it is a closed structure, the wall must exist.
"I need an armed convoy." Ke Lan said to Ye Yan on the other end of the video call, "It may take several days for people to reach the border of Block 1 on foot. We must use highly mobile vehicles."
"That makes sense." Ye Yan nodded, the fat on his chin trembling. "These vehicles must be lightweight and highly maneuverable, and also have certain firepower and defense capabilities. Although from the previous battle footage, those wolf-like creatures are not very powerful, we cannot rule out the possibility that there may be other things in Block 1."
"This request should be very simple for the Ye Group, right? They can even produce a machine like the 'Augustus', so converting it into a few off-road vehicles should be a matter of minutes." Ke Lan said.
"Of course. Let alone our Ye Group, there are a lot of off-road vehicles on the market that meet this requirement... However, since Brother Ke Lan has entrusted this matter to us, we naturally have to come up with the best product..."
Ye Yan's eyes rolled around, and he continued, "A new off-road vehicle with performance that surpasses most similar competing products on the market, and is named 'S-Class Ruins Yaguna Kotor Exploration Pioneer' , I think it will sell well after mass production! Our Ye Group has been immersed in the military industry for decades, and it is time for us to enter the civilian vehicle market."
It has to be said that although this little fat guy has no talent in mecha research and development, his business acumen is not bad at all. Ke Lan only made a request, and he immediately thought of mass production and marketization, and then came up with the idea of taking this opportunity to open up the civilian market - this guy is quite good at doing business.
After all, most of the Ark's focus is now on the "Aguna Kotor". If a new vehicle is launched at this time and put into exploration, this car will probably get a lot of exposure and traffic before it is officially mass-produced. In addition, with the Ye family's secret hype and promotion, the sales data will not be bad after it is officially launched on the market.
Currently, the vehicle manufacturer with the largest market share on the Ark is General Motors, which has been passed down from the old era. The "Junius" series of off-road vehicles, which ranks first in comprehensive ranking on the Ark, is their product.
Relying on close cooperation with the military, General Motors successfully acquired Volkswagen and Daimler Group in the old era and became the undisputed leader in the automotive industry, dividing the world with several Japanese car brands that survived in groups and China Automobile, which came later.
However, in the new era, only two Japanese car brands were left: "Toyota" under the Mitsui Group and "Mitsubishi" under the Mitsubishi Group. As for the Fuji Group and its "Nissan", they disappeared in the long river of history.
As for China Automobile, which once developed to the point where it could almost compete with General Motors, it switched its career to research more important aerospace vehicles and space battleships, and took the initiative to hand over the automobile and later hovercraft markets to others.
Ye Yan's move actually shows his ambition to "revitalize the glory of China's automobile industry."
Just as Ke Lan and Ye Yan were discussing the requirements for the fleet configuration and the replenishment of other supplies, a hunter from the Tidehunters suddenly ran over and said to Ke Lan, "Mr. Ke Lan! Doctor Ivan wants you to come over immediately. He said he has an important discovery!"
"Important discovery?" Ke Lan was stunned for a moment. After briefly explaining a few words to Ye Yan, he turned off the video communication, stood up and walked towards the base laboratory.
There is indeed a biology laboratory in the front-line supply base, but this laboratory is almost as simple as the biology classroom used for students to do simple experiments during the general business and teaching stages. Those advanced research equipment have not yet been transported to the "Yaguna Kotor", and there is only one dissection table and two optical microscopes in the entire laboratory.
What can you discover with this little stuff?
With this thought in mind, Ke Lan pushed open the door of the laboratory.
Ivan was sitting behind a table at the moment, staring intently at the eyepiece of the microscope, gently turning the focusing knob with one hand and carefully adjusting the position of the slide with tweezers with the other hand.
"Any important discoveries?" Ke Lan pulled over a chair, sat down opposite Ivan, and spoke straight to the point.
"Come and see for yourself." Ivan raised his head and said to Ke Lan, "Although we cannot see more microscopic details due to the limitation of the equipment, this alone is enough to be on the cover of the next issue of an authoritative biology magazine."
"What the hell... you made it sound so mysterious?" Before Ke Lan could even sit down, she had to stand up again, walked around the table, went to the microscope, and put her eyes close to it.
There is a tissue slice the size of a little fingernail on the slide. The thickness of the slice is as thin as a cicada's wing. The reflector on the base of the microscope can just make the entire piece of tissue transparent.
Although Ke Lan did not have a high level of attainment in biology and anatomy, he still discovered the problem at first sight.
"That circle of stuff on the outside...could it be...the cell wall?" Ke Lan raised her head in surprise and met Ivan's complicated eyes.
"In theory... yes." Ivan nodded, "But I can't even be sure whether this thing is the same as the 'cell wall' we know."
"But don't animal cells have cell walls?" Ke Lan asked doubtfully, "Could it be that these creatures that look so similar to wolves are actually plants... or fungi?"
He instantly remembered the "mimicry fungi" they had encountered in the wilderness. Could it be that these wolf-like creatures were actually a combination of fungi?
That's not right. If they were a combination, they wouldn't be so easy to kill - after being hit by a bullet, they should disintegrate directly.
